A prison restaurant training scheme, which includes an award-winning restaurant in Cardiff, has contributed to a lower reoffending rate among prisoners, a study has shown.

The latest Justice Data Lab statistics show that prisoners who took part in the Clink Restaurant training programme were less likely to reoffend when compared to a similar prisoner population.

HMP Cardiff

The Clink provides vocational training in catering, front of house, cleaning and horticulture with training restaurants in HMP Cardiff, HMP High Down in Surrey, HMP Brixton in London and HMP Styal in Cheshire and a horticulture project in HMP Send in Surrey.

Prestigious accolades

Cardiff prison restaurant The Clink has an ever-growing list of accolades including being named the 10th best restaurant in the UK in the 2015 Travellers’ Choice Restaurant Awards, announced by TripAdvisor.

(Image: WalesOnline)

The study measured proven reoffences in a one year period for a group of 89 offenders who took part in the training programme and a much larger group of similar offenders who did not take part in the programme.

It found that on average 17% of The Clink programme participants reoffended compared to 29% of offenders who didn’t participate in the programme.

Reoffending rates

It also found that in the group of prisoners who had taken part in the Clink training programme, a total of 48 proven reoffences were committed during the year - a frequency of 0.5 offences per person, compared to 82 proven reoffences committed in the other group - a frequency of 0.8 offences per person.

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The study said that for 100 typical people who would receive the intervention, compared with 100 similar people who would not receive it, the number of people who would commit a proven re-offence during one year after release could be lower by between four and 20 people and the number of proven re-offences committed during the year could be lower by between four and 63 offences.

It described these as “statistically significant” results.

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The Clink scheme recruits prisoners who have six to 18 months of their sentences left to serve. They receive full-time training in order to become employed in one of the restaurants and, through the skills and qualifications they gain from the scheme, upon release from prison.

'Skills and qualifications'

The scheme strives to graduate 1,000 trainees into employment each year and trains, on average, 50 prisoners per training unit per year. By 2020, the organisation hopes to have 20 training projects.

Justice Minister Sam Gyimah said: “We want prisons to be places of hard work and high ambition, with incentives for prisoners to learn. And I am delighted that the Clink restaurant gives prisoners the skills and qualifications needed to secure employment on release.

“The Justice Secretary announced a major overhaul of the prison system last week.

“Our measures will create prisons that are places of safety and reform, giving prisoners the education and skills they need to turn their back on crime for good.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman added: “Prisons have a critical role to play in making society safer, by cutting reoffending rates and by intervening earlier to turn lives around. Schemes like this can help offenders to quit crime for good.

“But prisons must firstly be places of safety and as the Justice Secretary announced in last week’s Prison reform White Paper, levels of violence in our prisons are totally unacceptable and we must turn the tide to improve safety by making prisons places of safety, decency and reform.”